MEMORIES

MEMORIES
By Joseph F. Neuman

The total knowledge that one acquires is every memory one recalls. All that we know is memories from the past brought to the present. Whether we remember love, hate, kindness, loneliness, joy, happiness, fear, regret, or boredom, these and every emotion we feel are nothing but memories brought from the past to be remembered in the present.
True, many of these memories might be preferred forgotten. However, we would not be who we are, if they were forgotten. Much like the old cliché, “you are what you eat,” in a sense, we are who and what we are that our memories hold us to be.
Think of the favorite story you have read. The best movie you have ever seen. The best tale you have ever heard. They all have something in common. Memories of the past brought to the present. The hero, or heroine becomes the hero or heroine because you learn of something he or she has done. Invariably, this is done by remembering what the hero or heroine has done in the past. Bring the memories you have have of the hero or heroine’s past into the present. Be it Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer, Ebenezer Scrooge, the muppets, John F. Kennedy, Agent Scully, the three sisters in ‘Charmed,’ Rose Kennedy, or any other hero or heroine, you learn of what they have done in the past first. This is what makes them the hero or heroine.
Now I ask the reader to use their imagination. Imagine that you are the mother of a child if you are a female, or a father if you are a male. You live in a completely secluded area. Everyone that your child has ever had contact with in their upbringing to the age of nineteen, every piece of literature your child has ever read---every person and every thing your child has ever known in their life, has always without fail, referred to a door as a table, and a table as a door. If they were brought up, every memory of every instance whereas a door was referred to as a table, and a table referred to as a door, wouldn’t they hold this to be true? Yes, they would have no choice. To them, a door is a table, and a table is a door. This would be a fact to them.
To think of a door in any other way but as of a door, is absurd, ridiculous, and bizarre. Yet, if every memory a person had, told him a door was a table, and a table was a door, this would be true for that person. Do you begin to comprehend how Al Queida suicide bombers think? Or the Japanese suicide pilots of World War II thought? This, has helped me to understand rapists, criminals, normal people, gays, everyone, better. If you “know where they’re coming from,” you have, “walked in their shoes.” You would have another’s memories. The facts you now hold to be true would not be true to you, if you had other memories. Where is this going? One might ask.
Herein lie the answers, as simple as the answers are. I used to jokingly say to my three ex-wives, “I have the answer to a perfect marriage. If you were to do everything I said to do, as I said it, without question, we would have no problems.” There is more truth to these statements than I first admitted.
The truth is all around us. If, we are to change a criminal’s behavior, we must change his solutions to a problem, or give him a different reality. The only way to do this is to change his memories. Through therapy, there are many changes. Some criminals have been rehabilitated. This is because they have been led to believe something different than what they previously believed. They have been given different memories. Therefore, they have different solutions.
This also gives us the answers to what organizations is a success. Take Christianity, for an example. You have millions of people thinking the same thing. Christ died for our sins. This is a reality to all Christians. As a child I was hearing this answer in cartoons. “I am what I am, and that’s all that I am. I’m Popeye the sailor man.”
Have not we all been brainwashed? Is not all that we know, all that we know? Charles Manson said the same thing. “I’m a product of civilization.” Isn’t this saying, “I am what I am, and that’s all that I am,” true for everyone? If one’s memories are changed, their reality is also.
The only way to change one’s reality is to change one’s memories. This is how and why a criminal is rehabilitated. The one that is rehabilitated has different memories. That is why some are rehabilitated and some are not. What has become true to some is not true to others. It’s really not as complicated as it may appear to be. When mankind can change a person’s memory, mankind can change. Not until then.
Upon writing this paper it entered my mind not to use too many clichés. Then I find everything I write is a cliché. I need to have my mind stop reeling. Oh, wouldn’t the world be a much better place to live, if only everyone thought as I do?